


Dashing Through the Snow

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Driving in a Blizzard, F/M, Face It This is Basically a Hallmark Movie, One Rental Car Left
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 06:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13118124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: On a snowy Christmas Eve, Cisco Ramon discovers with horror that there are no rental cars left at the airport for him to get home. Luckily, the last car got reserved by someone going his way, and she's even willing to give him a ride.Now these two strangers have to drive through a blizzard together in order to get home. No problem, right?





	Dashing Through the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I gave Cisco and Caitlin rather better families than they have in canon because holiday fluff, and also because I can.

The bells over the door jingled merrily as Cisco swung through it. “Woof!” he said, wrestling his suitcase over the threshold and shaking snow out of his hair. “It is coming _down_ out there! Hey, man, how much for a sleigh, and does it come standard with eight tiny reindeer?”

The poor guy behind the counter - working a snowy Christmas Eve at the airport, you talk about the shit shift - blinked at him. "I'm sorry?"

"Never mind, it's okay." His joke falling flat couldn't dent Cisco's good mood. Sure, both flights had been delayed, turning his arrival into late Christmas Eve night instead of before noon like he was supposed to. But that was all behind him now. Another half an hour and he'd be at his folks' house and finally done with this endless day of travel. It was enough to make him start singing Christmas carols. "How are you doing tonight?"

"I'm fine, and you?"

"Pretty good. I need to rent a car."

"Do you have a reservation?" He tapped at his computer. His nametag informed Cisco that "YUSUF is happy to serve you!"

"Ah, no, but I'll take anything you got." Cisco rummaged for his wallet. "What do you need, driver's license, credit card - "

"Um," Yusuf said.

Cisco looked up. "Your expression is not boding well."

"It's just that we don't have any left."

"Any wha- any _cars_? You don't have any cars left? How?"

"It's been really busy today."

The bells jingled, and Cisco glanced over his shoulder. A snow-coated woman with a giant suitcase, a purse, and a shoulder bag that could hold the Taj Mahal struggled to keep the door open.

He went and grabbed the door for her, and she said, "Thank you," as she wrestled all her luggage through and parked it by the row of chairs.

"Okay," he said, going back to the counter and to Yusuf. "Okay, look, I know you need to, like, clean out cars and put in gas and whatnot when they get returned. I'm willing to wait for that, okay? Isn't there anything that just barely came back? I'll take anything. The shittiest rattletrap you got. I just need to go about fifteen miles down the road."

"Sir, we really don't have anything. There's one car in the lot - "

"Okay! I'll take it! Sweet!"

"- and it's reserved."

His heart fell. "How long do you keep the reservations for? Like, do you release it at any point?"

"Only if their flight is canceled and - " He checked his computer. "According to this, it landed about half an hour ago." He looked up, scrunching his mouth with regret. "You could wait and see if one gets turned in?"

"Is there a good chance of that in the next hour or so?"

Yusuf looked out the window at the snow pouring down, and the deserted parking lot. "Not really."

Cisco pressed his fingers into his eyes. "Shit," he mumbled.

"I'm really very sorry, sir."

"It's not your fault, man."

"Maybe you could call a cab? Or an Uber? Or someone could come pick you up? I'm here all night, you're welcome to stay here and wait."

He sighed and grabbed his suitcase. "Thanks, I'll give that a try."

He turned and saw the snow-covered woman just getting up from the row of chairs. "I'll save you the time," he said gloomily. "They're all out."

She opened her purse. "I made a reservation."

Well, there went that last glimmer of hope. "Of course," he said. "Smart. Good for you. Good thinking ahead." He hauled his suitcase to the chairs and flopped into one, digging out his phone.

He tried Uber first. He didn't know an app could actually laugh at him. Then he looked up all the cab companies and called them one by one. The best forecast he got was an hour and a half. "The roads are terrible, sir," one cab company lady told him. "Because of the snow. We have to think of our drivers' safety."

"Yeah, yeah, no, I get that."

"Should I put your name down?"

"Uh - I'll call back. Merry Christmas."

"Same to you, sir."

He looked up. The smart, reservation-having lady was filling out paperwork, her head solemnly bowed and her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth. He smiled a little, in spite of his stranded state. She was kind of cute.

Yusuf caught his eye. "Any luck?"

"Not so much. Don't suppose the city bus - ?"

"Stopped running at six because of the holiday."

He sighed. "Of course it did."

He looked at his phone. He knew one of his family would come pick him up. His pop, or his brother, because his mama hated driving in the snow. Or maybe one of his cousins or aunts or uncles.

Come rescue helpless, hapless Cisco. Again.

This year was supposed to be different. For the first time, he'd paid for his own plane ticket, and he'd left his own apartment this morning, driven in his own new(ish) car to the airport. He was supposed to pick up a rental car and arrive at his parents' house and put all his gifts under the tree and settle in and smile triumphantly at his parents and his brother, totally on top of everything.

See? I can handle this stuff. I'm not little baby Cisco anymore.

But now he had to call them and admit that he hadn't exactly gotten his transportation as sorted out as he'd said he had. _Please come get me, I'm stranded. Yeah, I'll be waiting outside with my backpack._

Whatever. Fine. It was fine. So he needed a ride home from the airport. So what? He'd still done all those other things. He still had a great life and got all his bills paid on time and was even making a dent in his student loans. This didn't bump him back to the kiddie table.

He gritted his teeth and lifted his phone to dial his parents.

The rumble of wheels over tile made him look up. The lady who'd reserved the last car had finished up her paperwork and was wrestling with her luggage again. He got up and got the door, and she glanced up, saying, "Thanks," again in a soft voice.

"No problem," he said, as she got all her stuff out the door again and started out into the parking lot, through the deepening snow.

He tracked her path toward the one, single car - a bland, dark-colored sedan, capped with a thickening layer of white.

On impulse, he jumped out the door after her, yelling, "Hey. Hey! Wait up!"

She paused, turning a little.

He sloshed through the snow, which fell cold and wet into his shoes, until he stood in front of her. "Which way are you going?"

She blinked at him. She had Bambi eyes, big and brown. "Excuse me?"

The wind gusted hard, and he tugged his coat around himself. "It's just, if you're taking 70 east, my parents live like a mile and a half off the Stanton exit, and I was wondering if maybe you could . . . "

"You want me to give you a ride?"

"Only if it's on your way. It's a really shitty night, and I don't know how much you heard, but I'm kind of out of options here, and I've been traveling for hours and honestly all I want is to get to my folks' house and dump my presents out under the tree and find some kind of flat surface to fall asleep on, preferably a bed but I'm not picky."

She was still looking at him like he was speaking Klingon.

"Look, I can pay half the price of the rental car, and I can provide delicious snacks and excellent drive-time banter - "

Her forehead crinkled up. Now she was looking at him like _he_ was the Klingon.

"Or total silence, if that's what you'd prefer. Look, I get that I'm probably freaking you out right now. I'm just a weird airport stranger, getting weirder by the moment probably, but I'm begging you, okay, _begging_ here. If you could just, like, find a little bit of Christmas spirit in your heart and give me a ride?"

The wind caught her hair and tossed it over her eyes. She brushed it back. "I'm actually Jewish."

He blinked at her. "Was that a no?"

She chewed on her lip. "Where did you say your parents lived?"

"Stanton and McAuley. Where are you headed?"

"Glenview."

"Wow," he said involuntarily. "You got a trek, don't you?" Glenview was an hour from the airport on a good night, and this was anything but a good night. But it was also a straight shot on 70 east.

"Yes," she said, considering him. "Okay."

"Wha - okay? You're okay with it?"

She looked up at the snow, squinting as a gust of flakes blew right in her face. "It is a really miserable night to be stuck at the airport. And it would be nice to not drive alone in this for the entire time."

"That's amazing. Thank you. Hang on, I gotta go get my bags - " He ran back to the door, skidding once or twice on the wet, snowy pavement. "Hey, man," he babbled to Yusuf, "thank you, I'm getting a ride, Merry Christmas!" He bounded out the door, stopped, and swung back around. "You got a snow brush?"

"There should be one in the car, sir. In the trunk."

"Right, of course there is, thanks!" He let the door bang shut behind him, bells jingling wildly.

She'd just popped the trunk and put her shoulder bag inside. He helped her with her big suitcase, which weighed a ton - was she _moving_ here? - and then managed to wedge his suitcase and backpack in next to it.

The snow brush was in a little mesh pocket. He extracted it and said to his traveling companion, "How about you get in and get the car started while I clean off all this snow?"

"Okay," she said. "Do you need me to put anything in the passenger seat for you?"

"Nah, I got everything on me."

He felt the engine rumble to life as he swept snow off the hood, and then felt the buzz in his pocket. He fumbled his phone out - his mama. Of course.

He debated over answering it right now, but she'd already called twice, and since he had everything figured out now, he could tell her so.

He had to pull his glove off to answer the call, and wedged the phone in between his ear and his shoulder as he pulled his glove back on. "Hi, Mama," he said, starting to sweep at the snow again.

"Mijo, are you landed?"

"Yeah, mama, everything's fine. We're just getting the rental car now and we're about to get on the road."

"We? Quien es we?"

"Oh, this friend I'm splitting the rental car with," he said airily.

"You didn't tell me that."

"I told you I'd get home on my own."

"No, you didn't tell me you were bringing somebody for Christmas."

"Mama, no, it's not like that. She's just a friend who was on my same flight. She's going up to Glenview, so we decided to share the car, and she'll drop me off."

"Oh," his mama said. "Which friend? Is it someone I know?"

"No, we, uh, we met pretty recently. She's nice though."

"What's her name?"

He scrambled around, trying to picture the luggage tag on her suitcase. Something with a C, something kind of Irish-sounding - Colleen? Cathleen? "Caitlin," he said triumphantly. "Caitlin Snow."

He started working on the windshield. As the snow swiped off the driver's side, it revealed Caitlin behind the wheel, poking at the buttons and dials on the dashboard with a scowl of concentration.

She looked up, and he waved at her. She paused, smiled, and waved back.

His mother said in his ear, "Okay, well, I was calling because the news said the snow's very bad, so you need to drive carefully."

He wiped the rest of the windshield clean, holding onto his patience. "Mama, I've driven in snow before."

"I know, pero it's bad ahorita."

"I know, I'm out in it," he said. "Don't worry. We'll take our time. We'll be fine. Look, Mama, it's already late, so just go to bed, okay? Leave the side door open and I'll lock it after me whenever I get in." He started working his way down the side of the car, knocking snow off with quick swipes. At least it hadn't iced over.

"Estas seguro?"

"I'll be fine. I'll probably just sneak in and crawl into bed. I'll see you guys in the morning."

"Mijo, ¿ya comiste?"

"We had a layover in Chicago, Mama, I ate there."

"Airport food," she said in disgust. "Okay, but call if you're going to be late."

He bit back the snotty remark about curfew that rose to his lips. The snow really was bad. "I will."

"But not while you're driving!"

"I know, I know! Mama, I gotta go. Te quiero, I'll see you in the morning."

"Love you, baby."

He hung up and and swiped the last of the snow off the passenger side. He gave the brush a couple of whacks on the bumper to knock the loose snow off that, and popped the door open. "Okay, we're good to go," he said, hopping in. The inside of the car could have doubled as a meat locker, but the marked lack of bitter-cold wind gave it points over outside.

"I'm Cisco, by the way." He stretched his gloved hand out over the gearshift. "Cisco Ramon. In case you wanted to know who the weirdo in your car is."

She took his hand for a moment. "Caitlin Snow."

"Really, thanks again. You're saving my life here."

She took her hand back and turned to the wheel, fiddling with knobs until she got the windshield wipers going. "It's not that big of a deal."

"Agree to disagree on that," he said cheerfully. "You need to call anybody? Let them know you're on your way?"

She waited until he belted himself in before putting the car into gear. "I called my mother from baggage claim." Snow crunched under the tires as she backed out of the space. "I told her not to wait up."

"You know she'll wait up anyway, right?"

"I hope not," she said.

Something about that seemed off to Cisco, but he let it go and reached out to mess with the vents until lukewarm air blew in his direction. "So, how do you want to do this? I'm a talker but I know not everyone is. I can pretend we're on public transit. Just put in my earbuds and shut up until the Stanton exit. If you want."

Her teeth sank deep into her bottom lip as she navigated the turn out of the parking lot. Maybe snow driving made her nervous. "No," she said, once they were on their way out toward the main road. "It's all right if you talk. I'm going to focus on driving, though, so I may not be a very interesting conversationalist."

"If that's all," he said. "I can carry like three conversations by myself. I've done it. Let me know if you need me to button it, or tell you directions, or talk about something else, okay?"

She nodded.

"So I think we were on the same flights," he said. "Are you from Central City?"

"Mmhmm. You?"

"Well, not originally, obviously - " He waved a little. "But yeah, I live there now. It's a great town, you know? Have you lived there a long time?"

"Five years."

"I've been there for three. I moved there originally to try and get a job in my field - " He grimaced. "Which took _forever._ I'm not even kidding. I was temping and working retail for like two years and I don't recommend either of those things, I really, really don't. Near the end there, I was actually considering applying to offices for junior accounting minion or whatever. I minored in math so I probably would have gotten it."

They trundled over the main road, slow and careful. The roads were a slushy white and grey, and snow kept dumping down, glittering in the headlights and taillights of the few other cars on the road. Christmas Eve snow, which was pretty nice unless you were driving in it. There were probably a whole lot of kids delirious with joy right now.

She held onto the steering wheel for dear life, her jaw clenched as they eased to a stop at a light, then slowly and carefully took a left.

He said, "Uh, no offense, but are you sure you're okay to drive in the snow?"

"I grew up here," she said. "This is where I learned to drive."

"Okay, you just seem - tense."

"I can handle it," she said. "Tell me more about junior accounting minion. Would you have liked that?"

"Wha - no, no way. Can you picture that? Sitting in a cubicle and staring at spreadsheets all day, _yuck._ I probably would have lasted six months and either gotten spectacularly fired or jumped off a bridge."

He suddenly realized she might have a job where she sat in a cubicle and stared at spreadsheets all day and was perfectly happy about it, so he added hastily, "Not that junior accounting minion isn't a good job for people who like it, but it wouldn't have been for me, you know? Anyway, I have an awesome job in my field now, so I guess persistence paid off."

He stole a glance at her and found her smiling a little, so he felt like she hadn't gotten insulted even if she did love spreadsheets. "Where's your awesome job?" she asked. They were sitting at the last stoplight before the freeway, waiting their turn to the on-ramp.

"Palmer Technologies," he said proudly. "R&D division."

The smile suddenly dissolved. "You work at PT?"

"Yep," he said, wondering if she had a beef with them. Sometimes people got up in arms about some technology they were developing, even though PT didn't work on weapons or military contracts or anything like that.

"Oh," she said, and didn't say anything more as they merged onto the highway.

He fiddled with the vents again. The air blowing out was a lot warmer now. The inside of the car had gone up to feeling like the inside of a refrigerator, rather than a meat locker.

The snow let up some, and the highway was more clear than the surface streets had been. While the thin traffic was slower than usual, it zipped along steadily. If this kept up, he'd probably be crawling into his childhood bed inside of forty-five minutes.

He settled back into the passenger seat. "So, uh, did you come to town to spend Hanukkah with the fam?"

"Hanukkah actually ended a week ago," she said. Her grip on the steering wheel had softened, and some of the tension in her face had eased up. "But yes, I came to spend some time with my mother."

And you sound so excited about that, he thought. "Well, that'll be nice."

"Mmm. It was the most convenient time. The lab where I work closes between Christmas and New Year's and her work slows down quite a bit at the same time."

"Oh, where do you work?"

"Mercury Labs."

"Neat! What do you do for them?"

"I'm a geneticist and bioengineer."

He let out a little whistle. "That sounds fancy. How long have you been there?"

She smiled. "Six months yesterday."

"Sweet! High-five for killing it at new jobs."

She let go of the steering wheel just long enough to slap his hand, then grabbed it again.

"You like it?" he asked then.

"I do, yes."

"Can you tell me anything about it or will you have to kill me?"

She smiled to herself again. "There's enough that's not classified. But it's pretty esoteric, some of it."

"Like?"

She told him about some of her projects, which sounded both way over his head and amazing. Manipulating DNA with viruses and stuff -  "Holy shit, you're like a scientist in the movies."

"I hope not. Scientists in the movies are always creating dinosaurs that go and eat everybody, or viruses that kick off the zombie apocalypse."

He laughed. "We don't have much foresight in fiction, do we?"

She smiled. "What are you working on for Palmer? Or will you have to kill me?"

He grinned. "Probably not? I guess one big thing right now is a kinetic-energy battery." That was a pretty public project; PT wouldn't mind if he talked about it. "We're trying to improve the existing model so it's more accessible to the consumer market."

"What kind of issues are keeping that from happening?"

He explained it, watching her for signs of eyes glazing over. But she seemed interested, asking questions and making observations that set his brain churning.

The snow started to come down heavier again, and she slowed down as it covered the blacktop faster than friction could it melt away. She was being a little too careful, maybe - other cars passed them one after another - but he didn't say anything because driving faster than you were comfortable with in bad weather was pretty much a driver's ed scare video waiting to happen.

He glanced at the time and thought he was going to have to text his mama pretty soon and let her know the weather was slowing them down. Knowing her, she had her phone under her pillow even if she'd gone to bed like he'd asked her to.

They talked more about Central City, discovering the occasional shared acquaintance, talking smack about a research think tank that was a professional rival of both their companies, comparing their experiences of the various yearly events in Central City. He was aghast to discover that she'd never been to one of his favorite festivals.

"Seriously," he said, "you've _never_ been to Taste of Central? I ate myself silly last year. I was like a boa constrictor digesting a goat for the whole next day."

"That's not really something I would do on my own. I have to work up to trying new things."

"Well, you can call me next year, because I'll be there anyway."

She looked over at him for a split second before concentrating back on the road.

The offer had popped out automatically, something he'd said a hundred times before. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. She was smart, and cute, and funny in a weird way, and just generally someone he'd like to get to know better.

But she still hadn't replied.

"Hey," he said. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or anything."

"No, I was thinking about it. That would be nice. Thank you."

He felt a flush of relief. "Well, Taste of Central's not until summer, so we'll have to hang out before then."

She smiled to herself. "Yes, I think so."

Cisco smiled back at her, then winced as a spear of light bounced off the rearview mirror and into his eyes. "Oh, my god," he said, looking back over his shoulder. "This jerk with his brights."

Caitlin clutched the wheel. "He'll go around."

But the big, black pickup truck didn't move into the left-hand lane. It kept driving up behind them, fast and mean, headlights bouncing in their mirrors.

"What's this dick doing?" Cisco said. "Go around, asshole."

As if the driver had heard him, the truck finally roared into the passing lane, horn blaring. Cisco started to roll his eyes, but then the truck whipped back in front of them, bumpers far too close. Then its brake lights flickered.

Caitlin shrieked and slammed on the brakes, which squealed against the snow on the road.

Cisco felt the back end of the car fishtail, and he grabbed the door handle and tried not to yell _shitshitshit_ aloud as they skidded, swerved, and then when Caitlin turned into the skid, bounced wildly into the ditch.

Then it was over. The truck was accelerating down the highway, its driver probably laughing his jerk ass off.

"Holy shit!" Cisco yelled then, since it was safe and they were fine. "Holy shit, what a fucking asshole! I hope he runs into a bridge!"

"Don't!" Caitlin gasped. "Don't say that."

"Okay," he said, "but he deserves - "

"Just don't," she said. "Don't, don't, don't - " The word collapsed into short, sharp breaths like sobs.

"Whoa," he said. "Hey. Caitlin?" He reached out and touched her hand, and she grabbed it in a vise grip.

"Hey," he said softly, trying to hide his wince. "Slow down, okay? Um, think of a jellyfish. Can you do that? Right now? Think of a jellyfish just floating along. His arms are sort of drifting and his bell is blowing up and then floating down again. Can you picture that? Out and then in. Out. And in. Out. Okay. In. Yeah, good." He kept it up, gradually slowing his words until she sat with her eyes closed, breathing deep and then letting go.

"Okay?"

She nodded and then released his hand. He flexed it a couple of times to get the blood flowing again. "Hey," he said. "You with me?"

She opened her eyes to look at the snow landing on the windshield. Even though she'd stopped hyperventilating, she was ice-pale and still shaking so hard that her hair quivered. "The car," she said in a small voice.

He hadn't felt a crunch or a thump, but it had been pretty wild there for a moment. "I'll have a look," he said, unbuckling his seatbelt and popping the door open. All the nice warm air immediately got sucked out into the freezing cold. He pulled his gloves and hat on tighter and climbed out into the snow, regretting again that he'd left his boots in his luggage.

The bumpers looked okay, and when he kicked snow away from the tires, it was gravel underneath. Half-frozen mud would have been a total bear. He hiked around to the driver's side and twirled his finger in the universal _roll-it-down_ sign. She opened the window.

"Everything looks okay," he said. "Although we'd probably better back up out of this ditch before any more snow falls in the tire tracks."

She nodded and reached for the gear shift, her hands still visibly shaking. He watched, concerned, as she put it in reverse. He called out directions - "okay, a little to the left, yeah, there you go" - as she slowly, slowly backed up over the gravel and onto the shoulder. When all four wheels sat on blacktop again, she let out a sigh like she'd just performed brain surgery.

Instead of going back around to the passenger side, he leaned against her door. "Hey," he said. "I think maybe I should drive."

"I'll be all right," she said.

He crouched down so their faces were level. "I don't think you will," he said, trying to be gentle.

"No, I will."

"Caitlin. Look. We just had a hell of a scare, and you're still processing it, okay?"

"I'm overreacting. It was just a little skid. I'll be all right in a few minutes."

"You're going to need more than that."

Her brows came down and she looked stubborn.

He spoke quickly.  "Listen for a moment, okay? If the weather stays like this, it's going to be another half an hour, forty-five minutes to my folks' place, and then who knows how long up to Glenview, all by yourself. Let me drive the car to the next stop. Give you some breathing space."

"The rental agreement said I was the only one who could drive the car."

"I won't tell if you won't."

She bit her bottom lip and peered up at the snow rushing down. Then she opened the door and climbed out. Her foot slipped, or her knee gave out, and she stumbled.

He caught her. "Okay?"

She nodded.

He studied her pale face. There was snow in her lashes and clinging to her hair. "You can tell me no, but do you need a hug or something right now?"

"I overreacted."

That was the second time she'd said that. What the hell was that about? "Don't care," he said. "You need a hug?"

She looked back down the road at the skid marks they'd left in the snow, quickly getting filled in with more flakes. "That would be nice," she said very softly.

He put his arms around her, and for a moment she was stiff and unyielding against him. He ran his gloved hand down her snow-spangled hair. "S'okay. We're okay. It's all over. We're good. You're good. You did good. You turned into the skid, it was textbook, you did just right. We're okay."

Her arms suddenly wrapped around his ribs, like bands of iron even through both their puffy coats. "Shhhh," he said. "Shhhhh."

Snow fell around them, hush-hush-hush. The only sound was the faint bing-bing-bing-bing of the car, complaining because Caitlin had left the keys in the ignition.

"Shhhh," he said in her ear.

* * *

They got back on the road, Caitlin belted into the passenger side, still white and silent. It took her another two miles, at a careful pace, to say anything. "Jellyfish?"

It took him a moment but he remembered what he'd said to her while she was hyperventilating. He shrugged. "I used to wake up in the middle of the night and worry that I'd never get a job. There was this oceanography video on YouTube that I would watch to calm me down enough to get back to sleep. So, jellyfish."

She was quiet for another creeping, careful mile, and then said, "My fiance worked at Palmer Tech."

She was engaged? He pushed down a feeling of ridiculous disappointment and said too-heartily, "Oh yeah? What's his name? Maybe I know him."

She shook her head. "You don't know him."

"Hey, I'm a pretty sociable guy. I've been to happy hours and things and I've met a lot of people who used to work there - "

"He died," she said. "Three years ago."

"Oh, shit," he said. "I'm sorry. What happened? If it's okay. If you want to talk about it."

"It's okay," she said. "There was a car accident."

His stomach plunged right down to his toes. Somehow, he knew what was coming.

"It was bad weather. A lot like this." She turned her head and looked out at the snow whipping past the passenger window. "We hit black ice on a curve. He lost control of the car and it slid right into a bridge support."

His own voice echoed in his ears, from right after they'd gotten run off the road - _I hope he runs into a bridge!_ Horror dripped slow and gooey down his insides. "Oh fuck," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I never would have said - what I said - if I'd known - "

She gave him a brief glance. "You didn't know. How could you know?"

He swallowed. She was right - he couldn't have known - but hearing it sure as hell couldn't have helped when she was already shaken up from getting run off the road. "You were in the car?" he asked.

"Mhm."

"Were you hurt?"

"A broken arm and a concussion. Not actually that bad. His - his side took most of the impact."

"Wow," he said. He didn't know what else to say. He stared at the road, the snow still tumbling down.

He wanted to ask a million horrible, nosy questions. Was the car totaled? Did any other cars hit you? Did anyone stop to help? How long did it to take the paramedics to get there? How long were you in the hospital?

Did you get to say goodbye, or was he just gone?

"How are you doing now?" he asked, finally.

"Fine."

"Really?"

"My arm still hurts sometimes when the weather's bad." She massaged her right forearm. "But I haven't had any aftereffects from the concussion."

"That's cool. Okay."

Silence settled like snow, pressing down heavier and heavier with each passing moment. He didn't know what to say. Should he change the subject completely? Should he let her talk? Should he ask one of the questions chasing themselves around his brain? Should he turn on the radio and initiate car karaoke?

"I want to be fine," she said.

He glanced at her, then concentrated hard on the road. "I'd think anybody would."

"Most of the time I am fine," she went on. "I've put my life back together. I get up in the morning and I go to work and I have some friends that I see, and I take cooking classes, and I-I-I live my life. I even - I even dated this year. A little."

"How did that go?"

She gave a little shrug. "They were nice men," she said. "Nice dinners. Nice evenings."

"Just nice?"

"I'm trying," she said. "I'm trying to do things that make me feel normal again. I used to date, before Ronnie. Dating is part of feeling normal."

"Fake it 'til you make it?"

"Something like that, I guess."

"How did your dates do with the whole, uh, accident?" How even did you bring something like that up? And what did you do if they got weird on you?

"I didn't tell any of them about Ronnie," she said. "We mostly didn't make it past the second date, and that's just - that's a part of me I didn't feel like sharing that soon."

"We've haven't known each other for even an hour," he pointed out. "And I haven't bought you a cup of coffee."

"You're different."

"Because we almost got in an accident together?"

"I guess. Maybe."

The heater whooshed. The windshield wipers squeaked against the glass, sweeping snow away as it flung itself against the car.

"Thank you for telling me," he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her turn her head to study him. "I guess," she said, with a tinge of surprise in her voice. "I guess I wanted you to know."

Silence fell again, long enough for him to consider car karaoke a second time. It wasn't quite as heavy as it had been before, but he also wasn't sure how to break it, or even if he should.

Caitlin stirred. "Is that your phone?"

That was when he heard the buzzing, and felt it too, against his side. Cisco looked at the time on the car's dash and groaned. "Oh, man, I bet that's my mama. Panicking." He pulled it out to answer it himself, then looked out at the road again.

He held it out to Caitlin instead. "Do you mind answering?"

"Of course not." She took it from him and peeled off her glove to navigate his screen.

"But don't tell her about getting run off the road. She'd never sleep again."

"Should I put it on speaker?"

"No, she hates speaker. Just answer it and tell her I'm driving."

"Cisco Ramon's phone," she said. "No, he's driving right now. This is Caitlin Snow. Oh, yes, we're fine. We're just taking our time. Driving carefully. What?" She peered out the windshield and squinted at the sign coming up. "We're just passing the . . . Canfield Street exit. I'm sorry, can you say that again?" She lowered the phone a little. "Your mother says we should go to somebody named Benny's house?"

"What?"

She listened. "She says she already called him and he's expecting us."

"Oh my god," he groaned. "Tell  her - ugh. Put it on speaker, okay?"

She hit the button and put the phone in the cupholder. His mother's echoed tinnily. "Tell my son it'll be fine, they have plenty of room - "

"Mama, Caitlin put you on speaker," he said.

"Mijo, what? I can't hear - "

He said louder, "Mama, you're on speaker."

"Are you still driving?"

"I'm going about twenty-five here. I'm being so careful. Look, we're not gonna go to Tio Benny's."

"No, no, go to Tio's! It's closer and you won't be driving in this blizzard and we'll do presents when you get here en la mañana - "

"Doesn't he have all his kids and grandkids there for Christmas this year? That's - " He did some calculations, trying to remember how many new babies he'd seen the last time he'd logged into Facebook. "Like fifteen people, and he doesn't exactly live in a mansion. Where are they gonna put us, the garage?"

"Don't be silly, darling, there's room."

Sleeping bags on the floor, listening to his cousin Angel's brand-new baby waking up two or three times for feedings, and then getting trampled by little kids in the morning, delirious with Santa-joy. He liked Santa-joy, but not at five-fucking-am. "Mama, no. We're practically to your house, and Caitlin still needs to get up to her mom's in Glenview."

"You're at Canfield. That's five miles away."

"We're past Canfield now, and if we turn around to go to Benny's, it's practically five miles, and half of it's on the surface streets with stoplights and shit - "

"Mm!"

"Sorry, Mama, stoplights and stuff, and you know that's where all the ice builds up. The snow's letting up anyway. We'll keep going."

She let out a deep sigh. "Okay, fine, but take me off this dumb espeaker and let me talk to your friend."

Espeaker, he noticed, and she'd said _en la mañana_ earlier instead of _in the morning,_ when she usually stuck to her best English if she knew a white person could hear. She was either very worried or very tired or both. He felt a little guilty. "Okay. I'll see you soon, Mama. Te quiero."

Caitlin picked the phone up and tapped the speaker off. "Yes, Mrs. Ramon? I can - _What?_ " She sounded absolutely stunned. "That's very kind, but I couldn't possibly. No. I couldn't impose. Not on Christmas. Thank you, but I really couldn't. You're so kind to offer. Really. I'll be all right, really I will. Yes. Uh-huh. What? Of course. Yes. Yes. We will. Okay. It was nice talking to you, Mrs. Ramon." She hung up. "She says goodbye and she loves you, and also for me to text when we get off the highway."

"We can do that," he said, looking at her quizzically.

Before he could work out how he wanted to ask his question, she leaned forward and looked down the road. "The snow's not letting up," she observed.

"Hey, we'll be fine," he said. "We'll slow to a crawl if we need to. We'll be okay."

"I believe you," she said. "But you told your mother it was letting up."

He squirmed. "She worries," he muttered.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You said you were out of options."

"What?"

"At the airport. That's what you told me. But you have family in town. They could have come picked you up."

"I wasn't lying. I didn't want to drag them out of the house on Christmas Eve to pick up my dumb ass. Not if I could get myself home somehow."

"Would you have called them? If I'd said no, or that I was going a different direction, or - "

"Yeah," he said. "I'd've called them. I wouldn't have been happy about it, though."

"Why not? Your family's not like mine," she said. "They seem really nice. Your uncle was more than ready to let you stay there with no notice."

"They are great," he said. "I mean, we got the crazy cousins and we talk shit about each other sometimes, but I like them, when it gets right down to it. They're loving and supportive and they've always been there for me, and that's actually kind of the problem here."

She frowned. "Nope," she said. "I don't understand that."

"Okay, it's sort of dumb. I mean, I feel really stupid complaining about this after what you told me."

"This isn't a contest," she said. "If it's a problem for you - "

"It's not even a problem, I just - ugh. Okay. First, you need some background."

"I think I do."

"So I'm the baby of the family. You gotta know that going in."

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?"

"Just the one brother, but all my cousins on both sides are older too."

"By how much?"

"Ummm, counting my brother, it's anywhere between five and twelve years older than me. And there's eleven cousins on one side and eight on the other. They were all this big happy herd of kids that hung out all the time. And then there's me. Tagging along after them."

"The statistical outlier," she observed.

"Right! I remember when I was a little kid, everyone seemed so big to me. I always had to beg someone to play at family events. And everyone was - god, I don't know exactly how to put this. I guess, one stage of life ahead of me. At least."

"In what way?"

"When I started kindergarten, they were all going into middle school, and when I was starting middle school, they were graduating high school, and when I graduated high school, half of them were married and had kids. They're always saying things like, 'wait until you're older,' and 'when you're my age - '" He made a disgusted noise. "And they still call me Cisquito. It sounds like a _bug._ "

"That sounds really frustrating."

He huffed out a breath. "I don't want to make it sound like my life was unending misery. Like I said, as a whole, my family's pretty awesome. They just haven't noticed I'm an adult and I can handle things on my own now. I guess I didn't want to ask them for help tonight because they'd be going to rescue baby Cisquito again."

When she didn't say anything, he looked over. "Hey, I told you it was dumb. I copped to that."

"You did," she said. "Let me ask you: do you _want_ something from your family?"

"What do you mean? Like, an official recognition of my adulthood? On parchment paper with trumpet blasts?"

She shrugged. "You tell me."

He thought that over. "I don't know. I guess, I want them to realize I'm not a baby. I don't have be babysat, I don't need advice every moment, I don't need a hundred different people parenting me. I want to be Cisco, not Cisquito."

"Mmmm," she said. "Okay. So you want to change how they see you?"

"Yeah. Basically."

"The thing is," she said thoughtfully, "it's not something that you can control, how people see you. In their own heads, you know. You can do some things to change how they treat you. You can tell them you don't need advice, and you can handle things that they're used to doing for you, and you can ask them not to call you Cisquito. How much do they do that, really?"

"I guess not that much," he muttered. "But too much for me."

She nodded. "That's fair. You can ask them to stop that. But you can't really change their mental picture of you overnight. No matter how mature and on top of things you are, they'll remember when you were little. They can't not."

He sighed. "Yeah. I guess not. It's just that - this is the year my life started to work the way it's supposed to. Good job, good money, all those things. And I'm still waiting to feel like I've got it all handled."

"Oh," she said softly.

"I guess I'm thinking if they finally treat me like an adult, I'll feel like one."

"I understand that."

He waited. "So, isn't that your cue to tell me that nobody feels like they've got it all handled? That everyone feels like they're still just a little kid playing grown-up, and they all look around for the adult in the room before going _shit, that's me_?"

"Do you want to hear that?" she said, with extreme mildness.

"It's what people say."

"Of course it is, because it's true. But after what you said, I didn't think you'd particularly welcome it, coming from someone older."

"What? Older? You're, like, twenty-six, right?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Well, I'm twenty-five, so you're not that much older."

"Okay, fine," she said with a laugh under her voice. "My point is, I could play wise experience here, but I think you know just about anything I could tell you already."

"So basically, I have to give them time."

"Mhm."

"And I have to give me time."

"Yeah. And accept that you'll always feel at least a little bit like a kid playing grown-up."

He hummed to himself. "Does that mean I still get to build snowmen and have water balloon fights?"

"Both at the same time would be unwise, I think."

"Noooooo," he protested. "Think of it! Backyard skating rink!"

"Oh, boy! Concussions for everyone!" she said in the same bright chirpy voice.

He laughed, and then sighed. "I guess you're right."

"About the backyard skating rink? Yes. Totally."

He snickered. "So can I ask you something now?"

"What's that?"

"Why did you turn down my mama's invite to stay? That is what she asked you, right?"

"It was very kind of her, but I couldn't possibly impose on your Christmas Eve, and your Christmas morning - "

"She wouldn't have said it if she didn't mean it."

"Anyway, I want to keep going."

"Look, I get that you don't necessarily want to spend the night at an almost total stranger's house, but are you sure you want to put yourself through another hour of this, on your own?" He waved out the windshield. "There's a motel right off the exit we're going to take to my folks' house. You could check in there if you wanted."

She shook her head. "I told my mother I would be there tonight."

"You miss her that much?"

"It's not that, exactly."

"What is it, then?"

"I've driven since the accident, you know," she said sharply. "I've driven in snow, I've driven in bad weather. I can handle this."

"Yeah, you said that earlier, but that was before we met an asshole with a truck."

"All that happened was we slid off the road a little bit. We were fine. The car didn't even get damaged. I completely overreacted."

"You lost control of the car while driving through a blizzard on a highway. That's about as close as you can get to replicating the original accident. And I'm going to guess right now that the anniversary is either just past or coming up soon, right?"

She was very quiet and then whispered, "January third."

"So, yeah," he said. "It's close to the surface. Shit, given all that, I'm amazed you're not in a fetal position in the backseat. Nobody would blame you for taking care of yourself tonight."

"I did the fetal-position thing for six months," she said. "I washed out of my residency. I almost got evicted. I lost everything, not just Ronnie. Fetal position never did anyone any good."

"You put yourself back together, though," he pointed out. "Job and friends and cooking classes and dating . . ."

"Right. And I didn't do that by curling up in a ball and crying."

"I realize we've known each other for, like, an hour here. But I'm going to say something and if I'm way overstepping, you're allowed to tell me to fuck off forever, okay?"

"Okay."

"It sounds like you had a really bad time right after," he said. "That makes all kinds of sense. And that you've worked your ass off to get back to living your life again. Which is amazing. But I think you might be swinging the pendulum too far the other direction. I think you might be defining _fine_ as 'it never happened, and it doesn't affect you in any way.'"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her mouth fall open slightly.

"And I don't think that's accurate," he went on. "Do you?"

"My mother calls me every Wednesday evening like clockwork," she said abruptly. "She literally has it as a standing appointment on her work calendar so nobody tries to schedule a meeting with her."

"That's kind of - sweet, I guess." In a weird, regimented way. But what did he know about her family and how it worked?     

"She asks how I'm doing and I tell her that I'm going to therapy and taking my medication. I tell her I'm fine."

"Are you telling her the truth?"

"Mostly."

He let that sit.

"I told my mother I would be perfectly fine," she said. "Tonight. When the plane landed. I told her I could drive to her house, no problem. That it wasn't going to be even a little bit of an issue. She had to take a three-month sabbatical to come and make sure I got out of bed every morning and then to help me figure out what I was going to do if I wasn't going to practice medicine. I owe it to her to be okay."

"You don't owe anybody anything, except yourself, and what you owe yourself is honesty about where you are and how you're doing. Even when you don't like the answer."

When she didn't say anything to that, he ventured, "Should I fuck off forever, or what?"

She sighed. "Do you by any chance see Dr. Sharon Finkel?"

"Who's that?"

"My therapist in Central City. She tells me the same thing."

"Well, she sounds like a really smart lady and maybe you should listen to her."

She sniffed a little. He wasn't sure if it was an annoyed sniff or a teary sniff or what.

When she didn't say anything for another half a mile, he started to worry that - in spite of her therapist agreeing with him - she now officially hated him. That she was counting down the miles until she could dump this annoying know-it-all on his folks' front porch and take off, tires squealing.

Although he was pretty sure that she'd never squealed her tires in her whole life, and wouldn't do it now, even if the snow permitted.

But when he snuck a look at her, she didn't look angry. She looked serious and thoughtful. She caught him looking at her and gave him a hesitant smile that was gone almost before it began.

It reassured him, though. Maybe she didn't _hate_ him.

Up ahead, a sign appeared through the blowing snow. "Caulfield," he said, sitting up straight. "That's the last exit before Stanton. We're almost there."

"Your mother," she said. "I said I would text her." She pulled his phone out of the cupholder.

He left her to it and focused on driving, his stomach bubbling with familiar coming-home excitement. When they took the off-ramp, he broke out into a smile at the sight of the familiar landmarks that had greeted him every time he'd come this way for the past eight years. Even covered in snow, they meant _almost there, just a little longer._

"Is that the motel you were talking about?" she asked, pointing at the squat building on their left as they turned onto Stanton.

"Yup," he said.

She slid him a look. "According to the sign, there are still vacancies."

"Yup," he said, reminding himself that they'd barely met.

If they'd been friends for years already, he could use shameless guerilla tactics against her to make sure she stayed at his house or the motel or just somewhere safe instead of heading out into the blizzardy night again.

But they were practically strangers, even if it didn't feel like it, and he didn't have that right.

When they turned off the main road, there were a few faint dents in the snow cover on his parents' street, but they were still plowing through it more than driving. There was a bad moment at a stop sign where the back end slithered sideways about an inch when he braked, but the wheels caught again and they eased to a stop.

Caitlin let out her breath as they got rolling again.

"It's right there," he told her. "Real close. Right there with the big tree in the front yard."

They pulled in behind Dante's car. From the coating of snow, he'd been here several hours already.

"Woo!" he said, switching the car off. "Made it."

She let out her breath too, turning her head to smile at him. He held out his hand, inviting her to give him five, and she did.

He smiled back. "So, fair warning - "

She looked wary. Maybe she thought he was going to pressure her into staying. Or refuse to give the keys back. Or something.

"My mom's going to insist on feeding you hot chocolate and cookies before you go."

The wariness eased. "Are they good cookies?"

"They absolutely rock, and so does her hot chocolate."

"How could I possibly turn that down, then?"

He grinned.

They got out of the car and Cisco said, "Brr," and tugged his hat down. Was it possible it had gotten colder?

He looked over the top of the car at Caitlin, who had her head tipped back, watching the snow pour down. He tried to think of a way to say, _Here's my phone number, please text me the minute you get to your mom's so I don't stay up all night worrying about you,_ without it sounding weird.

"Cisco?"

"Hmm?"

She brushed snow off her face. "Do you think your mom would be okay with it if I asked to stay, after I told her no already?"

Relief washed through him. "Are you kidding? She probably already made up a bed on the couch in case you changed your mind. Which is for me, by the way. You're gonna get my room. I can pretty much guarantee."

She smiled, and started to say something when a spill of warm yellow light cut the night.

"Cisco!" his mother's voice called out. "Mijito!"

He bounded through the shin-height snow to the front door so she wouldn't come wading out to them in just her slippers. "Mama," he said, hugging her tight.

She hugged him back. "Ayyyyy, mijo," she said, brushing her fingers down his face. "It took you so long. I was worried."

"I know. I'm here now." He hugged her again. "Merry Christmas, Mama."

"Feliz Navidad," she said. She was soft and warm and smelled like shampoo and baby powder and hot chocolate. "My baby boy. I'm so glad you're home."

He grinned ruefully into her hair. Okay, yeah, he was always going to be the baby of the family. But there were worse things than feeling like a kid at Christmas. Maybe he just had to give her time. All of them.

"This is your friend?"

"Uh-huh. Caitlin, this is my mama. Mama, Caitlin Snow."

Caitlin held out her hand, and then let out an "eep!" of surprise when his mother gave her a hug too. "It's very nice to meet you," she said, flustered.

"And you. Are you sure you won't stay? This is very bad."

"Actually, yes, please, I would love to stay, if it's not too much trouble."

"Ay, no, no trouble. You can sleep in my son's room." She narrowed her eyes at Cisco. "You're sleeping on the couch."

"Yes, Mama." Cisco mouthed _I told you so_ at Caitlin, whose nose scrunched with amusement.

"Come inside, I have hot chocolate and cookies -  what are you laughing at, Cisco?"

"Nothing, Mama," he said, allowing himself to be shooed inside the house.

In spite of the late hour, the lights in the living room were lit. On the tree, all the embarrassing kiddie handmade ornaments were scattered among the tinsel and the twinkle lights. (Christ, he hoped his dad had hid the Rudolph he'd made in second grade. The damn thing looked like it had an intensely personal disease and his mama never threw away anything that either of her boys had made.) The nacimiento was set up in its usual place, a candle flickering away behind it. The battered little sheep and camels looked as fat and cheerful as ever, and Joseph's staff was still all crooked from when Cisco had dropped the figure the year he was eleven and tried to glue it back before anyone noticed.

There was a faint, lingering trace of steamed corn husks in the air. His aunties must have come over here to make tamales today, which meant the freezer was probably crammed full. _Score!_

He let out a sigh and thought _home_.

He went into the kitchen, where his mother caught his eye. "Mijo," she said. "Go get the bags, okay?"

"Whoa, hey," he said, stuffing a cookie in his mouth. "I just got here! I'm barely thawed out! You want me to go back out in the cold?"

She snorted and told Caitlin, "This one is always a big strong man until his mama asks him to do something he doesn't want to do."

"Oh my god," he said. "Going! Going." He looked at Caitlin. "Do you need both bags?"

"Just the shoulder bag should be enough for tonight," she said, grinning into her mug of hot chocolate.

_"Thank_ you," he said with feeling.

As he pulled his gloves and hat back on, his mother said to Caitlin, "Your poor mama must be so worried. You should call right now to let her know you're okay."

Caitlin hesitated, then met Cisco's eyes. "Yes, I think I will."

* * *

A hand shook his shoulder, and he mumbled, "Fu'off Dante 'm sleep."

"Not Dante," a soft voice said.

He blinked his eyes open and peered at the face a few inches away from his own. "Blurf?"

"Sorry," the face said. "But I didn't want to go without saying good-bye."

He blinked a few more times and said, "C'n you - glasses?" flapping his hand in the direction of the coffee table.

"What? Oh!" A pair of thick-framed, ugly glasses were pressed into his flailing hand, and he sat up, putting them on.

With clarity of vision came some clarity of mind, too. He recognized the face as Caitlin's, remembered the whole previous night, and said, "Hey. Good morning."

They'd stayed up last night, eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate. She'd called her mother and had a quiet, intense conversation that she came back from with teary eyes. But she'd smiled when he caught her eye, and took the cookie he handed her. After his mother had gone to bed, they'd talked until he found himself almost face-planting in the cookie plate, and then reluctantly gone to bed themselves - her in his old bedroom, him on the couch downstairs with the Christmas tree a foot from his head.

"Good morning," she said now. She was dressed again, her coat over her arm, her hair brushed and shiny. How did anyone look that cute and put-together at - he checked his phone - seven-thirty on a non-work day?

He sat up and subtly, he hoped, ran his fingers through his hair. With any luck, it was more sexily-disheveled than got-caught-in-a-tornado. "So, taking off?"

"Mhm."

"Don't suppose I can convince you to stay for breakfast."

She held up a brown paper bag and a giant travel mug of coffee. "Your mom already tried."

"I bet," he said. "Okay. Hang on a minute. I'll walk you out."

"It's cold out there."

He kicked off the blanket, relieved that he'd opted for thick flannel pajama pants and a BB-8 t-shirt instead of his usual boxers for bed. "I'm tough, I can take it. Besides, I'm stealing Dante's coat and boots." He grabbed his brother's giant, knee-length parka from the closet by the door, shoved his bare feet into the snow-crusted boots on the mat, and picked up her enormous shoulder bag before she could protest.

She opened the door to a burst of bitter-cold air and a glittering white world. The sky was bright and clear, the brittle blue of a winter morning. The front walk was clean, a path carved down to the concrete with walls of snow rising up to knee-height on either side. His pop or his brother must have come out here and shoveled this morning. They'd cleared the driveway behind her tires, too.

When he looked out to the street, there was a path carved through there, either from a weirdly efficient city or - more likely - a neighbor with goodwill toward all men and especially those of them trying to get out of the damn neighborhood this morning.

"Looks good," he said. "You should have an easy drive."

"My app says the roads are clear. Half an hour. Less." She popped the trunk and stepped back to let him toss her shoulder bag inside.

"What do you carry in there anyway?" he asked her. "You're only here a week."

"Necessities," she said primly.

"For what, invading Canada?"

She gave him a little smirk and shut the trunk again. "A woman requires shoes."

He laughed and tugged Dante's coat closed around himself. "Uh, so, I realize this is really kind of weird to say about a trek through a blizzard, complete with near-accident, but I had a good time last night."

"Talking me through a panic attack?"

"Well, that wasn't the funnest thing ever," he conceded. "But I like talking to you, and I like _you_ , and I was thinking . . ."

"What?"

"That we could maybe see each other some more, in a non-severe-weather setting."

"See each other?" She said. "Or - _see_ each other?"

"Only if you're ready," he said. "Which, if you're not, I get and I'd still like to be your friend, because something tells me my life has been missing you, one way or another."

Her coat had one of those little drawstrings around the waist. She fiddled with the ends of the drawstring. "I'd like that," she said.

"Friends? Or - "

She said, "More than friends."

He felt the smile bloom, but he had to check. "You sure? You feel ready?"

She tugged at the string a few times. "I was trying so hard to date this year," she said softly. "And it felt like a chore, or an assignment for therapy, because I never felt the - the _spark._ You know what I'm talking about?"

"Yeah." He could feel it himself, crackling in his fingers and toes.

"And I was starting to worry I'd never feel that way ever again." She lifted her head. "But I feel it with you. And for the first time in a long time, I want to see what happens next."

"Okay," he said. "Awesome. Me too."

They smiled goofily at each other, cheeks pink from more than the chill in the air.

He said, "You know, I'd really like to kiss you right now, but I haven't brushed my teeth yet, so my breath might be kind of - "

She put her hand on his arm, and he immediately forgot what he'd been saying. "Cisco?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"Hold your breath," she said, and leaned in.

Their lips brushed, hers soft and cool, as feathery as a snowflake. Holding his breath wasn't going to be a problem, because he'd lost it completely.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over, and he opened his eyes to see her retreating, leaning back against the car door, pink all over her face.

Seriously, she was so cute.

She fumbled for the door latch, missed it twice, and finally managed to pull it open. "Okay," she said. "I-I'll text you when I get there."

"Cool. Yeah. Drive safe," he said dazedly.

"Merry Christmas," she said.

"Happy late Hanukkah."

She gave him one last smile and shut the door. He stepped back as she backed the car out of the drive and started down the street. Hugging his brother's coat around himself, he watched her go.

The thwap of the front door and crunching footsteps alerted him to someone else's presence, but he stood and watched her car travel carefully down the street.

"Is that my coat?" Dante said.

"Yep."

"I should take it back," he threatened genially.

"Try it," Cisco said.

His brother's arm came around his shoulders, and he looked off at the retreating car. "No, no, Mama," he sang mockingly, "solamente una amiga!"

"Shut up," Cisco said, elbowing him.

His brother laughed. "You know, for some reason I'm not at all surprised that you're the first one of us to bring someone home for Christmas."

Cisco could tell his brother didn't really believe what he said. He was just screwing with Cisco. But he didn't feel the need for loud denial. Instead, he said, "That wasn't what happened. But wait until next year. Let's see what happens then."

He felt Dante's gaze on the side of his head, but kept watching the car until it turned the corner.

"Okay, loverboy," Dante said finally. "Come on back inside, or I'm gonna eat all your Christmas bacon."

FINIS


End file.
